The Beat of a Mother's Heart
by Randomabiling
Summary: How would Edith's story be different if she had told Cora from the start about her pregnancy? Slightly AU after 4.6
1. Chapter 1

_July 1922_

Edith sat at the telephone, staring at the receiver until her eyes stung, debating. She hadn't moved from her spot for what seemed like ages, alternating between watching the telephone and checking the grandfather clock, it's incessant tick-tocking mocking her lack of progress. Her insides churned as she rehearsed the words she wanted to say. A burp of bile ran up her throat and Edith clamped her hand over her mouth, clenching her jaw and pushing it back down. Mrs Butte had walked by her a number of times already, her eyes skirting away whenever Edith noticed her and she was sure the housekeeper was conjuring all sorts of rumors as to her state.

Taking a shallow breath, Edith's trembling hand clasped the receiver and she waited for the operator to speak.

"Downton Abbey, please. Yorkshire." Edith forced her voice to remain steady.

"Downton Abbey. This is Mr Carson speaking," the familiar baritone of her butler sounded tinny in her ear.

"Yes, Carson. This is Lady Edith. I wonder if Lady Grantham is available." She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling the gurgling tickle her palm.

"Hello? Edith, darling?" Edith's breath stuck in her chest at her mother's warm greeting and for a moment she contemplated hanging up.

"Mama...I wonder if you might come to London?" Edith's words were quiet, controlled.

"You mean now, darling?" Cora questioned, her astonishment clear in her expressive voice. "It's rather late. I'd never be back in time for dinner."

Edith dug a nail into the lacquered top of the expensive table that held the telephone. She should laugh and tell her mother to never mind her silliness, say goodbye and that she would see her in a few days, as was planned. It was a mistake to think she could do this.

"Edith?" The lilt of her name, said with the inflection of worry in her mother's strange accent brought a spring of moisture to her eyes.

"I just need you right now, Mama," she whispered, the tears building and blurring her vision.

A moment of silence and then, "I'll be there as soon as the next train."

* * *

Cora sat on the train, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She had tried reading the newspaper but the words swam in her head, refusing to stick as she thought about Edith. Since Michael Gregson's departure for Germany, her middle daughter had been melancholy. When he seemed to lose touch with everyone, presumed missing, that melancholy had turned desperate. Cora tried to remain optimistic for Edith's sake. Her mother's heart cracked and bled however, as Edith's face became permanently etched with worry. How many heartaches did one girl have to endure?

Now her mysterious telephone call begging her to go to London. Robert hadn't hid his consternation when he'd found her in her room, Baxter hastily packing her overnight bag. She had tried to be casual about it, but the memory of Edith's pained voice screamed _Liar_ as she told Robert everything was fine, that their daughter just wanted her mother's company. Cora had always been quite bad at lying and after the briefest look of disbelief, Robert left her to complete her task.

Nipping the skin of her lip, agitating the same spot over and over, she tried to imagine what could have distressed Edith to the point of calling her up from Downton. The lack of answer ate at Cora's nerves. Edith was not one for intrigue but she could feel it in her gut, in her mother's heart, so eerily in tune to pick out the slightest sign of distress. The feeling told her whatever was bothering Edith was more than Michael Gregson's disappearance.

* * *

Edith pinched the heavy drapery between her fingers, once again anxiously looking to the street outside of the window. The scene was as it had been the number of times she had already done just this, the people of London bustling by and no sign of her mother. Again, now that the deed was done, she wondered if it had been unwise to phone that morning. Not simply unwise, but catastrophic, the obliteration of everything she had been up until this point. Soon her mother would arrive. Her firm but kind mother. What would she think of her awful secret? The nausea that had become as familiar as her heartbeat awoke as she worried the same path in the carpet over and over. She rushed out of the library and up to her bedroom, hand over her mouth as the sounds of a motor could be heard pulling up to the house.

Cora stepped out of the car, taking a moment to look up the stone facade of Grantham House, as though answers to all her questions would be carved into the outer walls. Now that she had arrived, she was eager to go in, see Edith, wrench whatever was troubling her out quickly, so that the wondering could be over.

Leaving the driver to tend to her bags, Cora trotted up the stairs and was met by the butler, Mr Rowe. Giving him a brief nod, she strode past him, looking around the entrance hall expectantly. Finding her search disappointing, Cora ascended the stairs. Finally, once at the top, the object of her hunt appeared looking anemic and scared. Letting out a deep sigh that released the stiffness in her shoulders, Cora went to her daughter and placed a concerned hand on Edith's arm. She watched as the brown eyes avoiding her own filled with tears that quickly spilled over, streaking her cheeks. Bracing her arm across Edith's shaking shoulders, Cora quickly led her back into the room she had just left and sat them both on the bed.

The familiar scent of Cora's perfume, the same one she had worn for as long as Edith could remember, enveloped her. Edith immediately felt comforted in her mother's embrace, an exhaustion taking hold as her limbs loosened and her crying stopped. She couldn't remember the last full night's sleep she'd had and her eyes drooped, her breathing steadied as her mother continued to make calming sounds while rubbing her shoulders. The terrible truth that had run through her mind since learning it took a respite from its torture as Edith relaxed against her mother.

"Darling, are you in trouble?" Cora asked quietly, the prescience of her words startling Edith.

Leaning away, the trembling began again. She opened her mouth, determined to say the words but no sound came forth. Blinking rapidly, her mouth salivating with a growing need to be sick, Edith tried again. She watched, wide-eyed, as her mother laid a careful hand on her knee.

"You're pregnant," Cora said without accusation or anger.

"Oh Mama!" Edith sobbed and once more she found herself in her mother's arms. This time the embrace was not soothing or delicate, it was fierce, tight. It sheltered her as the truth stormed around them.

"Shh, it's going to be alright," Cora crooned, and whether due to the tumult of her emotions or the anxiety of the procedure awaiting her the following day Edith didn't know, but suddenly her mother's words were no longer comforting. She became infuriated.

"Are you really that naive?" Edith cried, wrenching herself away and standing up. The bewildered look on her mother's face only fueled her ire. "Nothing is going to be alright! Do you think that I'll just be able to go back to Downton carrying my lover's child and no one will bat an eye?"

Cora took a deep breath, staying silent as Edith stomped and yelled, gesticulating wildly. Her own anger was speeding through her heart. She wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake out of her what she could have been thinking. How could she have been so irresponsible? But of course, Cora let her anger simmer within her core, to be dealt with at a later time. To Edith, she presented a placid mask, letting her daughter have her outburst, understanding that terror over her situation was driving her venom.

"What do you intend to do, then?" Cora asked calmly, as though talking to a skittish colt.

"Get rid of it!" Edith declared.

"What?!" Cora gasped, rising instantly. She gripped Edith's arm, her fingers digging into her arm. "You cannot!"

Edith yanked her arm from her mother. "What would you have me do? Put the baby in the nursery? When your guests come over shall I parade my charming bastard out with the rest of your grandchildren?"

_Grandchildren_. Cora pulled her hand away hastily, Edith's hot temper like a burn to her flesh. Her daughter was going to….to her grandchild. Her hand pressed into her own stomach, her throat convulsing in spasms as her eyes stung. A baby. Not just a baby, her _baby's_ baby. A golden haired child with honey eyes and a quiet demeanor. A baby that would never take its first breath or wail its lusty cry or wrap its fingers around its mother's.

"There has to be another way," Cora whispered, pleading.

Edith sat on the chaise in the room, putting her head in her hands. "There isn't, you must realize that."

The despair in Edith's voice caused her tears to fall now. She felt a heavy disgust blanket her, that there was nothing she could do to make the circumstances better. Edith would never be able to keep the child without branding herself for life, but it seemed so wrong to spare her life in this way. Cora kneeled in front of her daughter's hunched body.

"When is the...procedure?" Cora swallowed around the thickness in her mouth.

"Tomorrow," Edith replied, her voice shaking.

"Well, then, we must get a good night's rest and store up your strength." Cora led Edith up and sat her at the vanity. With gentle fingers, she removed the pins holding Edith's curls in place, until her hair cascaded around her shoulders. While Edith wept, Cora steadily brushed out the fine strands and then began plaiting it, something she hadn't done since the girls were very little.

* * *

The inside of the car remained silent after it had parked. Edith stared at the building outside her window, its non-descript nature settling some of the nervousness she felt. Taking a deep breath, building her resolve and reaching for the door, Edith leaned back to place a quick kiss on her mother's cheek before exiting the car. Once on the sidewalk, the click-clack of her heels echoed as her hurried footsteps trailed up the steps. About to knock on the door, she stopped, feeling the air behind her shift, the nearness of another person causing her to turn, shocked. Her mother's pinched face, looking so much older suddenly that morning, staring up from the step below.

"What are you doing?" Edith asked.

"Going with you," Cora replied, her tone firm, killing the protest waiting on Edith's lips.

Both Edith and Cora were escorted into the waiting room of the clinic, and they sat carefully away from the other patients. Cora picked up a discarded magazine, trying to fix her mind on some useful distraction when all she really wanted to do was grab Edith's hand and run from that place, or at least crush her to her breast until it was time for her appointment. Never in her life had she imagined her path would bring her to such a place. She thought of Robert, how would she ever be able to face him again after allowing this?

Cora jerked when the plaintive cries of a woman could be heard through an open door and her heart palpitated uncomfortably when a nurse came to Edith, informing her it was time. It was only at that moment that she became aware of the crushing grip Edith had on her hand. Cora looked to see her daughter's pale face, a sheen of sweat forming on her brow.

"Edith…" Cora begged.

"I think…." Edith stammered, "I think that I won't be needing your help." Edith shot to her feet, pulling Cora up at the same time and hurried toward the door.

"Thank God," Cora murmured, following her daughter quickly out of the building and back to the waiting car.


	2. Chapter 2

_August 1922_

"Would you like me to draw you a bath, milady?" Baxter asked softly.

Cora continued rolling her head from one shoulder to the next, working out the kinks that had twined themselves into her muscles over the past few weeks. In some ways it was better that Robert was in America. Edith had begged her not to tell anyone about the pregnancy, and she had reluctantly agreed, hoping she would change her mind about her father given time. It wasn't so much lying that she had engaged in before his departure, more like the sin of omission, but it chewed away at her like a cancer nonetheless. She did miss him terribly, though, and his assuring warmth beside her at night helped her to sleep when her mind was flooded with worry over what to do about Edith. The weeks that passed since she had been called to London were strenuous ones. It took all of her fortitude not to accidentally reveal Edith's secret. Not that she wanted to betray her trust, but she often choked on the concern teaming to be expressed at seeing her daughter looking wan or not eating properly.

"Yes Baxter," Cora replied tiredly, pushing herself up so that the maid may undress her, "a bath would be divine."

Dressed in her robe, Cora rested her head on her pillow. She only meant to close her eyes for a moment while Baxter readied the bath. Robert's absence, Edith's predicament and the blasted church bazaar all tortured her in the darkness of her thoughts as she sank deeper into a fitful twilight. A persistent jostling roused her from her restless dreams and she sat up disoriented, looking into Baxter's sympathetic face.

"The water's just right now, milady," Baxter informed her. "Unless you'd rather nap. Then I can let the water out."

"No, no, I'll take the bath. I've a million things to do this afternoon and a nap will knock me out of sorts." Cora replied, sliding off of her bed and padding into the washroom. "I'll ring when I'm finished."

"Very good, milady," Baxter said before sliding out of the room and leaving Cora to herself.

The steam of the bath and the solitude of her own company eased Cora into a relaxation. She hummed as the heat of the water soaked through her skin and warmed her to the bone. On the verge of drowsiness again, a gentle knock on her washroom door disturbed her peace and she opened one eye to see Edith in the doorframe.

"You shouldn't fall asleep in there, you know," Edith admonished before walking into the room and sitting in the stool near the bathtub.

"And you should be resting," Cora pointed out.

"What does it matter?" Edith grumbled, crossing her arms tightly across her middle.

"Darling…" Cora reached out and squeezed Edith's hand.

"I need a plan, Mama," Edith stated without meeting her mother's eyes.

Cora shifted in the bathtub, resting her arms on the rim, "I think that you should let me tell your father. I believe he'd come around quicker than you think."

"No!" Edith exclaimed.

"Edith, really, I think-"

"I said no!" Edith's vehemence startled Cora into silence. "I couldn't bare it, Mama. He'd never look at me the same."

Cora observed Edith in the quiet that fell, the weight of shame in her daughter's voice beating down Cora's argument. She thought how differently she would have reacted just ten years prior. The face of a handsome Turk spasmed in her memory, how she had gotten sick in the washroom once returning to her room, Robert snoring away unaware. The dread that Mary could have been left with a lasting reminder of her indiscretion causing her illness more than dragging the man's dead body half way across the house. Life was so different now, the make up of her family so different and though she knew the world would be harsh to Edith and her child, should she keep it, some unkindness seemed a small price to pay for eventual happiness. And she believed, deep down, that Michael Gregson's child would one day make Edith very, very happy.

"I'm not going to keep it," Edith said softly, her face twisted by sadness. "I'll go away and have the baby, then give it to one of the tenant farmer's."

"Here on the estate? You don't think that will be torture?" Cora asked.

"Perhaps, but what would you have me do? If Michael is indeed….dead...what chance will I have keeping the baby." Edith put her head in her hands.

"I have a plan," Cora said. "You'll go to America. Stay with grandmama until the baby is born. If you're determined to give the baby up, we'll find a family for it close by. We could set it up as a sort of fostering situation, should you change your mind."

Edith looked up, her tear streaked face looking hopeful yet guarded. "That would require grandmama knowing."

Cora frowned, "Yes, but she'll be supportive. When the time comes I'll find an excuse to sail over and be with you."

"What will you tell Papa?" Edith wondered

Cora sighed, "If you insist I keep it from him then I shall think of something but I refuse to be a continent away when you give birth."

"Oh Mama…" Edith closed her eyes and shook her head, overcome with how frightened she felt. Cora reached over and grasped her hand.

"I believe everything will work out in the end, darling. Have faith!" Cora said gently.

* * *

Violet chewed her food thoughtfully, scrutinizing the faces at the dinner table. Robert, newly back from his American excursion, was blissfully immune to the subtext permeating the space around him. He took Edith's declaration of needing a break abroad with a confused shrug before tackling his soup. Cora, though she feigned surprise when Edith suggested visiting her grandmother in Newport, looked down into her plate too quickly and chanced too many looks at Robert's reaction to be as clueless as she would have everyone believe.

Something was most definitely stirring. Some intrigue that required subterfuge, which her daughter in law was clearly finding uncomfortable as she squirmed and fidgeted in her seat. Her granddaughter, in contrast, was passive, lacking the shine of one on the precipice of an adventure but like a convict resigned to her sentence. Edith pushed her food around her plate harshly, as though its presence were a personal affront. Wan and dark-eyed, it only took a few moments of scrutiny for Violet to see what was really going on. Feeling the air thin out a bit, Violet took deliberate, deep breaths before stabbing at her meat, wondering whom she should approach first. Cora had always been well-meaning but her instincts always leaned toward the sentimental. Violet was sure she was campaigning for Edith to keep the child, coming up with some scheme that would flimsily hide the truth. No, she would go to Edith and talk sense to the girl.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Thank you everyone who has reviewed, followed and favorited this story. I've never written Edith before in any great length, so I hope my treatment of her character in this story is something that rings at least a little true to her fans and doesn't anger anyone!**

Edith laid curled on her bed, her tears long dry, leaving an uncomfortable stiffness on her cheeks where their paths had trickled down. Her conversation with Violet still dominated her thoughts. Her very perceptive, shrewd grandmother, who had only to spend the length of a dinner in her company before she had sorted out the whole ruse. The woman wouldn't give away her secret, but she had been clear on what she thought the plan should be, and her suggestion was more of a dictum than she let on.

Blessedly, Violet hadn't wanted to know many of the details, only what her course of action was. After many hushed conversations with her mother, they had come to an agreement. It was one she could live with, she thought. A large part of her desperately wanted to keep the baby, perhaps the last piece of Michael that would be left to her. Mostly, however, Edith was terrified. Terrified of the stares that would follow her if the truth were known, terrified of the whispers behind raised hands that would echo around her, terrified of the disappointment, or worse, disgust that would pass over her father's eyes should he find out. Her mother was optimistic that there was a way to keep the child, but Edith couldn't figure how.

Her grandmother had listened to her quiet plotting out of their plan with raised eyebrows and pointed chin and Edith's confidence in the rightness of it withered under Violet's unblinking scrutiny. She finished in a halting rush, glancing at the older woman through lowered lashes, until her grandmother only had to say her name as a preamble, in a cautiously reprimanding sort of way, and Edith knew she didn't approve one bit.

A gentle knock roused her from her memory of the afternoon. The door creaked open and her mother peered into the room, quickly sliding through the door and shutting it behind her. Edith sat up on the bed at her mother's arrival, and Cora settled on the edge of the mattress, studying Edith's face.

"What did your grandmother have to say?" Cora asked hesitantly.

"Can't you guess?" Edith snapped, immediately feeling guilty for the sharpness of her tone.

"I have many different guesses as to what she said." Cora replied evenly.

"I'm sorry, Mama," Edith began. When Cora shook her head and cradled her hand in her own, Edith sighed. "She thinks I should take Aunt Rosamund and go to Switzerland. She says this should stay in the family."

Cora pulled back, "Your other grandmother is your family. And besides, I've already written her. It's done. The arrangements have been made."

Edith swung her legs over the side of the bed, sitting by her mother's side. "I wonder if maybe she's right." At Cora's hurt look, she rushed on. "Only that it might be better to go where no one knows me. Being with grandmama, I'm sure to run into someone that knows people here."

"Edith," Cora reasoned, "everything has been settled. Would you really rather go to Switzerland? At least in America you'll be with grandmama and we can guarantee that you have the best care. You can have more control over the outcome. I want you to take the time between now and the birth to really think, not be forced into some decision by people who mean well but will not have to live with the consequences as intimately as you will, should you decide wrong."

Edith remained silent, mulling over her mother's words. The little girl in her, the one always looking for ways to please, wanted to acquiesce to her grandmother's wishes, wanted to defer to her wiser opinion. Going to America did seem chancy.

Cora placed a comforting hand on Edith's arm, "Ultimately, darling, it's your decision. You are not my young girl to mold and boss anymore. You are a grown woman in charge of your life. You know my thinking on the whole thing. If you'd feel better going to Switzerland than I'll write your grandmother and I'll join you and Rosamund when it's time."

Edith threw her arms around her mother, really and truly believing, for the first time, that she had an ally. Cora would stand by her, whatever happened.

"No," Edith said, resolution strengthening her voice. "I'll go to America."

* * *

_October 1922_

Edith rolled her tea cake in her mouth apathetically while watching her grandmother. The woman ate as she did everything else, with a hurried, overwrought sort of enthusiasm that did not aid in her companion's digestion. Edith's attention was turned from Martha, as it often was, to the walls of the drawing room. If eating in Martha's company did not produce nausea, the decoration of the room surely could. It was a dizzying array of sharp colors and ornate fabrics. Every space was occupied by some expensive brick brack, making her nervous when walking by a table, should the movement cause something to fall off of its perch. Edith wasn't well versed in artistic periods, but even her novice eye could tell that the room was a gauche mishmash of Rococo, Italianate and Louis XIV. It was a startling contrast to the pastel hued, sedate drawing room she was used to, and not for the first time, she went through her grandmother's Newport home in wonder, unable to imagine her elegant, tasteful mother occupying the space with any sense of comfort.

She had been in America a little over a fortnight and along with a growing sense of homesickness, was the growing baby, finally making its presence known with tiny tickles of movement and the new roundness of her body. Feeling the bulge of her belly, Edith recalled seeing Sybil, and then Mary, at various stages of their pregnancies and the longing she had as their bodies changed from the children they were baring. Finally joining them in motherhood, she only felt lost and apprehensive, another Crawley sister destined to birth a child who would not only lose one parent, but most likely both.

"You're awfully quiet. Feeling okay?" Martha asked, swallowing her coffee in a large gulp. It was odd to Edith, the American need for observing a tea time, trying to emulate their English counterparts, but serving coffee instead. Edith studied her grandmother and again marveled at the difference to her mother. Only the eyes were somewhat similar, startling in their color and expressiveness.

"Yes," Edith replied, "I was just thinking…"

"About?" Martha inquired, leaning forward, inviting her to go on.

"Whom Mama takes after?" Edith revealed, momentarily shocked at her own forthrightness. Perhaps it was Martha's bold manner or being so far from Downton or the hormones, but Edith felt a sort of freedom in her grandmother's ostentatious home.

Martha let out a snort. "Your mother and her father were two peas in a pod." Rising from her seat, Martha went across the room, to her gilded desk tucked in the corner and took what looked to be a frame off of it. Coming back to Edith, she placed the picture in her hands.

"Your mother, aged five, and her proud papa." Martha declared before sitting back down and taking up another sandwich.

Edith stared at the old photograph, realizing she had never seen a picture of her mother that young before. Dowton was full of photographs of her mother past the age of nineteen, but none of her life prior to living in England. The girl in the picture was a miniature version of the woman she knew, her features smoothed and rounded, dressed in a pure white, lace pinafore, the sleeves pluming out over her thin arms. Dark cascades of perfect curls hung to her waist, a giant bow atop her head keeping the strands off her face. She sat on the lap of a man with an angular face, a shock of dark hair topping his head. His legs jutted out, looking long and lean in the black suit he wore. He was incredibly handsome, this serious looking man with his arm firmly clasped around the waist of the little girl in his lap. Her grandfather.

"Isadore called her his 'Cora-belle'." Martha glanced somewhere into the room as though looking at a distant scene playing out over Edith's shoulder. "He wouldn't speak to me for months after your parents married."

"Grandpapa didn't approve?" Edith asked, incredulous. It was the first time she heard of discontent from someone other than the dowager over the marriage.

Martha sighed and gave her an indulgent smile, "He was furious at me for securing the match. He had indulged the trip because your mother seemed eager for adventure and he didn't think anything would really come of it. Little did he know the urgent need for American dollars at the time. She was courted by quite a few titled debtors. I thought I was going to have to beat them away with sticks. It would have been comical if their desperation hadn't been so pitiful. Of course, she was also a lot prettier than the horse-faced, milkweeds that lined every ballroom from York to London. Your grandfather very much hated the idea of giving his little girl to a fortune hunter."

"How did you do it?" Edith wondered quietly.

"Do what?" Martha asked.

"Give up your child. To a family you didn't know an entire ocean away." Edith could feel the familiar tightness clamp her throat.

"It was a slightly different circumstance, dear." Martha patted her leg comfortingly. "Once your mother turned eighteen, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone made a bride out of her. I wanted the best for her and I trusted your father. There was an earnestness to him. He was too young at the time to see beyond the dollar signs but everyone else with a set of eyes and common sense could see he was smitten with Cora. So I knew in the end he'd finally realize it too."

Edith blinked back the tears that sat on the brim of her lids. Her emotions were becoming harder to reign in. Her short time in America had only served to confuse her more when she thought of what to do once the baby was born. Martha was so open about her condition, as though the pregnancy and the unborn child were a blessed event and not something to be concealed and then handled. It almost made her forget that she should be ashamed.

"Mrs Levinson, a Mr Fanning is here to see you," Her grandmother's butler announced, walking briskly into the drawing room.

"Oh yes! I almost forgot!" Martha exclaimed getting up quickly, brushing the crumbs from her mouth and hands.

At Edith's questioning look, Martha explained, "A dealer from Sotheby's. He's coming to appraise some of the pieces here. Your uncle wants to renegotiate the terms of our insurance policy or some such nonsense."

"Oh," Edith responded. Any other thought she had dissipated into the ether as Mr Fanning walked in. He immediately met her eye, his handsome face breaking into a genial smile, flashing his perfect teeth. Edith felt a flutter in her stomach that had nothing to do with the child growing there and though there was a moment that her heart clenched, feeling guilty for her attraction as she thought of Michael, she couldn't help the genuine smile that spread across her face in return.


End file.
